Health and Death

Dreary Death and Hateful Health,
Knocked upon my door and knelt,
And, "choose between us woman," said,
One exuding faith, the other dread.

"Outside it rains and our bodies pain,
From lack of human life to claim,
Neither the other one can stand,
So a choice from you we demand."

"But why?" I asked, perplexed and vexed,
Health couldn't be won nor death annexed,
So why choose when choice changes naught?
Ought Death be the one that's shunned, or not?

"Choose me and forever live,
All sins I promise to forgive,
But if you're not strong, you will belong,
With naught but what had done you wrong."

"Ignore His ignoble ignorance, do!
He knows not what his mouth had spewed,
Choose me and I shall give to you,
A life reserved for a favored few."

"But why?" I pressed, panicked and stressed,
What host can refuse a guest distressed?
But what host held in her hostage hand,
The power to doom and to be damned?

"If Health you house you will condemn,
Your brethren to the Under-realm--"
"But would you harbor Death instead,
Who would have them live but have you dead?"

"I am but a lowly being, I confess,
But upon your souls I must impress,
That albeit moved, I'm hard and shrewd,
And would have the both of you removed."

Aghast, amazed, the Immortals gaped,
I smiled and spoke as I escaped,
"Suffer like humans and realize,
That pain by pleasure is neutralized."

I watched as Life descended then,
And tied them to the land of men,
And Health and Death bowed to Life,
Who then pronounced them man and wife.

I can live without you

I can live without you now,
I can live without you.
The way I've managed uptil now,
To live, not just exist, without you.

I've breathed, I've eaten and I've slept,
I've laughed and joked and sung and wept,
Never, not once, did it occur to me,
That I'd be bound to you, and you'd be free.

Like chains that drag me out to sea,
Not to bind, but neither to free,
I believe you've dragged me out to be,
Someone who was never me.

I can live without you now,
The way I've always lived,
I don't know why, or even how,
I let you tell me how to live.

I'll teach myself what I already know,
Know but pretend that I don't:
I'll re-learn to live sans you and go,
Somewhere that I know you won't.

I can live without you,
I can live without you.
The way I have till now,
The way I haven't uptil now.

House of Sin

Welcome, stranger. Enter, please!
Embrace the sleaze and fine Disease,
Besides, Outside made inside you,
A creature spawned of monster slew,
Why deny damned demon needs?
So welcome, stranger, and enter, please.

Go through the open doors, the gates!
Skate the blades, defy the Slates,
And please amend that awful trend,
Of honor false and pride pretend,
Rid your soul, your skin, of Weights,
And go through, stranger, through those gates.

Can you feel the satin skins?
The velvet veils and the wanton winds?
Un-temper the tame, un-labor the lame,
Do shed that shroud of shallow shame,
There are no losses where there aren't wins,
So...can you feel those satin skins?

Step into the room, the room! my friend,
Discard the sense of doom, of End,
Bathe in the blood, in the red, red blood,
Un-quench what Outside had slaked with Mud,
And thirst to spend and on spirits depend,
Once you step into the tomb, my friend.

Look, my guest, look, it's Him!
The clouds of smoke His figure dim,
Oh, how handsome! Oh, how fearsome!
Oh, how terribly, awesomely wholesome!
Why work when one can wield a whim?
Follow His caprice, His avarice, Him!

Enter, stranger, into the House of Sin,
Note the noise, the moans, the din,
Are you in Heaven? Or are you in Hell?
You mayn't know, but if you do, won't tell,
Because the House is what you are within,
A demon, a beast and a House, for Sin.

The girl with the blue-gray eyes.

Under the stone-paved bridge there knelt,
A dainty lass with blue-gray eyes
--eyes so blue they mocked the skies,
and yet so gray they shamed away,
the storm clouds and their thunder belts.

She reached a fragile hand to stay,
A wild daisy, bedewed and cold,
whose silver petals then turned to gold,
But gold to petal's like rust to metal,
And leeched the daisy's life away.

Then a bullfrog bounded boldly up,
And her oak-brown skin did admire,
But his own marred hide invoked her ire,
So she glared, and he promptly flared,
and into bits of gray-green frog blew up.

Then came the rain, in torrents great,
She ran to the womb of the upward flood,
To dance insanely in the water's blood,
But the rain stopped dead, and the water fled,
She smiled at the earth's dark fate.

A slash of oil stained her face,
Then one and one and one more came,
Till the earth choked upon her shame.
She took a breath and blighted Death,
and then besmirched all earthly place.

And then she cried. Fat, rounded tears,
Fell on blackened ground to undo,
The curse she'd confined the earthlings to,
Then with a grin she banished Sin,
And rebirthed the earth sans the smears.

At night.

So silent the hush, so violent the touch,
So achingly tender the pain,
Like a scalding kiss, like a bruising bliss,
Your touch burns like a flame.

Midnight strands slip though my hands,
and I gasp as I feel the weight,
Of heavy muscle as we toss and tussle,
On a bed till the night grows late.

My breath hitches, my back arches,
In barely controlled fervor,
I gasp and pant, and your name I chant,
In a scandalous, ravenous murmur.

The moon's light-beams, like milk-white streams,
drench you and me so whitely,
that we brightly glow like the winter snow,
and the Night blushes so divinely.

Hot caresses and sweet addresses,
tumble from thirsting lips,
and with a wanton moan and a wild, wild groan,
We fall into hidden bliss.

The mist takes all, the raindrops fall,
Like a chagrined mother's rage,
And still we dance in a manic trance,
Like Passion's puppets on a Stage.

Because at night, we're free to play.